HISTORY 401: PAGANS AND CHRISTIANS
Essential reference works for research in late antique and early Christian history:
Encyclopedias: (all in Reference section, Bird Library)
Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (3 vols) DF521 .O93 1991
Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (2nd edition, 1997: 2 vols) BR162.2 .E53 1997
Encyclopedia of the Early Church (2 vols) BR66.5 .D5813 1992
Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edition, 1996) DE5 .O9 1996
Dictionary of the Middle Ages (13 vols) D114 .D5 1982
Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World (1999). DE5.L29.
Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity (1999) BX100.7.B53.
Note: each of these works has different strengths and weaknesses, and none of them covers everything. Look up your subject in several different encyclopedias. Make sure to use the newest edition if it’s available; it will have the most up-to-date bibliography for further reading.
Atlases: (in Map Room, Bird Library 3rd floor)
Cornell and Matthews, Atlas of the Roman World DG77 .C597
Matthew, Atlas of Medieval Europe G1791 .M3 1983
Also, lots of great maps for early Christian history can be found in back of v.2 of Encyclopedia of the Early Church.
General Background Reading: Besides Brown’s World of Late Antiquity, there are a few other books that can give you a quick and comprehensive overview of the period. All are available through Amazon for <$20.
Averil Cameron, The Later Roman Empire. DG311.C36. Covers the fourth century.
Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity. DE71.C25. Covers the fifth and sixth centuries.
Peter Garnsey and Caroline Humfress, The Evolution of the Late Antique World. Third through fifth centuries. Not in library.
Miscellaneous:
Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (3 vols): a who’s who of magistrates and officials. DG203.5 .J6 in Bird general stacks.
Augustine through the Ages: an Encyclopedia. Ed. Allan Fitzgerald, Grand Rapids 1999. B655.Z69A84.
Cambridge Ancient History, second edition, v.13: The Late Empire 337-425, and v.14: Late Antiquity 425-600. Long scholarly articles on particular topics. D57.C2515 v.13 and 14. Unfortunately, the new editions for the volumes covering the second and third centuries are not yet available. The first edition was done in the 1930s and is very out of date.
Quasten’s Patrology (4 vols): Basically a massive guide to early Christian literature. Long chapters on significant Christian authors, both Latin and Greek; what they wrote, where to find it, what scholars have said about it. BR67 .Q3 1984, general stacks.
Primary sources and sourcebooks:
J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius: Documents illustrating the history of the Church to AD 337 and
James Stevenson, Creeds, Councils and Controversies: Documents illustrating the history of the Church AD 337-461. Two extremely useful sourcebooks for anything Christian. A good way to “sample” major patristic authors (e.g. Augustine, Jerome, Basil, Chrysostom) 20 or 30 pages at a time.
KJA458.E5 1952 (oversize) Clyde Pharr, trans. The Theodosian Code and Novels. Imperial legislation issued between 311 and 437, organized by subject and then chronologically within each topic area. Book 16 deals with religious matters.
BV761.A3 C6 (3 vols.) P.R. Coleman-Norton, ed. Roman State and Christian Church. Collects and translates, in chronological order, every piece of imperial legislation that has anything to do with Christians or the Christian church, from the second century to 535 AD. Collected from a variety of sources and includes much that does not appear in the Theodosian Code.
BR200.C47 1986 J. Hillgarth, Christianity and Paganism, 350-750: The Conversion of Western Europe. An excellent selection of texts, dealing mainly with conversion and Christianization in the early medieval barbarian kingdoms.